ALL SCRIPTURE IS INSPIRED.

The apostle Paul writes to his son Timothy, “That from a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works,” 2 Tim. iii. 15-17. The Revised Version translates it, “Every Scripture inspired of God is also profitable,” although it gives as the marginal reading, “Every Scripture is inspired of God, and profitable.” It is a great pity that they did not adopt the marginal reading, or, better still, the Authorized Version, “All Scripture is inspired of God.”

There would be no special reason to object to the change, particularly as the learned Chairman of the Revision Committee has defended their rendering on the ground that it makes more emphatic the testimony which it bears to the inspiration of each and every part and portion of Scripture. But foolish and unstable souls have taken advantage of the alteration, as was clearly foreseen by many, to argue that some Scripture is not inspired. It may be of importance, therefore, to show that the translation of the Revised Version is condemned by scholars in no respect inferior to those, who so needlessly have given ns this new reading.

The American Bible Union; Dr. McKnight; Dr. Young, author of “Young’s Analytical Concordance,” in his translation; Rotherham in his translation; the Emphatic Diaglott; J. N. Darby; Tregelles; Dr. Noyes, Professor 'in Harvard University, who translated what may be called the Unitarian Version; Canon Fausset in the Critical and Experimental Commentary, all give it as in the Authorized Version, or say, “Every Scripture is inspired of God, and profitable.”

The last named scholar calls attention to the fact that the word “Scripture is never used of any writings except the Sacred Scriptures. The position of the two Greek adjectives, theopneustos kai ophelimos, forbids taking the one as an epithet, the other as predicate. The adjectives are so closely connected that as one is a predicate, the other must be also. . . . Inspiration is predicated of the writings, ‘All Scripture,’ not the persons. The question is not how God has done it; it is as to the word, not the men who wrote it.”

Dr. Bullinger, author of “The Critical Lexicon and Concordance to the English and Greek New Testament,” and other learned works, says of the rendering in the Revised Version, “This is not English, to say nothing of the Greek. Now this is not a question of Greek scholarship, but of common sense. And when you have the evidence before you, you will be perfectly competent to decide the matter. It so happens that the very same Greek construction occurs several times in the New Testament—e. g., Rom. vii. 12; 1 Cor. xi. 30; 2 Cor. x. 10; 1 Tim. i. 15; ii. 3; iv. 4, 9; 2 Tim. iii. 16; Heb. iv. 13. The Authorized Version translates all these nine passages in the same way, and on the same principles. But the Revised Version translates eight of them one way (i. e., like the Authorized Version), while it renders one on quite a different principle.”

He then gives the passages in full, showing that if the Revisers had been consistent, they would have translated the eight by putting the verb where they place it in 2 Tim. iii. 16. “The Revisers have translated eight of these passages on the same principles as the Authorized Version, i. e, supplying in italics the verb substantive ‘is’ and ‘are.’ respectively, and taking the copulative kai, ‘and’ as joining together the two predicates. But when the Revisers come to the ninth passage (2 Tim. iii. 16), they separate the two conjoined predicates, making the first a part of the subject, and then are obliged to translate the kai in the sense of ‘also, 5 when there is nothing antecedent to it. . . . The fact that they render the whole of these eight passages as in the Authorized Version, and single out 2 Tim. iii. 16 for different treatment, forbids us to accept the inconsistent rendering, and deprives it of all authority.”

However, let it go with the remark that Paul never could have said, “Every Scripture inspired of God is also profitable.” He might as well have said, “Every wholesome loaf of bread is also good for food.” "We are not dependent upon this passage to prove the proposition, that “All Scripture is inspired by God.” In another place it is said, “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners, spake in times unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us in His Son,” Heb. i. 1, 2. It was God who spake in the prophets; it is God who speaks in His Son. Nor let us forget the testimony of the Son Himself: “I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, He gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that His commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak,” Jno. xii. 49, 50. In His intercessory prayer also He says, “I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me: and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.” “He whom God hath sent,” says John the Baptist, “speaketh the words of God,” Jno. iii. 34; Jno. xvii. 8. It is plain then that God spoke in His Son.

That He spoke to the Fathers is confirmed by other evidence. The Virgin Mary tells us in her beautiful song, “He spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed forever,” Lu. i. 55. It was the Lord who said to Abraham, as he was bidden to look up to the starry sky, “So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the Lord; and He counted it to him for righteousness,” Gen. xv. 5, 6. “Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him: but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification,” Rom. iv. 23-25. So the apostle preaches to the Jews in Antioch, “We declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that He hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also mitten in the second Psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee,” Acts xiii. 32, 33. He goes on to show that the Psalm was written by David, that the same God who spoke to the fathers still speaks to us, and that the Old and New Testaments are inseparably bound together.

There is a remarkable passage which is conclusive on the subject in hand. “Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow,” 1 Pet. i. 10, 11. Hence it is evident that the prophets did not understand the full significance of their own God- inspired writings. They were like amanuenses to whom a master mind has dictated words too profound for them; and they are represented as poring over the words, when he has withdrawn, to discover, if possible, their deep meaning. It is well, too, to notice that in their earnest investigation they were occupied about the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.

This throws light upon another passage by the same apostle: “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation.” Dr. Lillie in his excellent Commentary on Peter translates strictly; “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture cometh of private—or from one’s own—interpretation.” He properly adds, “No such prophecy, in other words, is the fruit of the prophet’s own conjectures or calculations as to what is going to happen;” and this is precisely what Higher Criticism has the audacity to assert, that inspiration for the prophets meant their own calculations and conjectures as to what is going to happen. The wild conjecture of Higher Criticism can not possibly be true, if Peter told the truth, for he affirms that * ‘the prophecy came not in old time by the will of men: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,” 2 Pet. i. 20, 21.

If holy men of God were left to choose their own words, or to express their thoughts in language of their own selection, it would be madness to say, “the prophecy came not by the will of man.” But “holy men of God spake.” It does not say that they thought, but they spake, being moved, impelled, borne along, like ships before the wind, by the Holy Ghost. How any honest and intelligent person can deny in the light of such a declaration the truth of verbal inspiration, it is difficult to understand.

It greatly strengthens the conclusion, now reached, to remember that all Scripture, thus inspired, is written concerning our Lord Jesus Christ. He says, “Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. . . . Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me,” Jno. v. 39, 46. Joining the two disciples on their melancholy walk to Emmaus, He said to them, “O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory. . . . And they said one to another, Hid not our heart burn within us, while He talked with us by the way, and while He opened to us the Scriptures?”

The same evening He appeared to the assembled apostles, “and He said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with yon, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning me. Then opened He their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures,” Lu. xxiv. 25, 26, 32, 44, 45. The three divisions He makes of the Law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms, embrace the whole of the Old Testament, and these are concerning Him. The preparation He gives them for their great ministry, besides the baptism of the Holy Ghost, is to open the Scriptures, followed by opening their understanding to understand the Scriptures; and then they were ready to turn “the world upside down,” Acts xvii. 6. Nothing more is needed now.

There is another thought to keep in mind while reading the Word. “Whatsoever things were written aforetime -were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope,” Rom. xv. 4. Let the student of the Bible believe it continually and fully, that he is to find Christ somewhere in every chapter, and that whatsoever things were written aforetime, even the dry genealogical tables of Chronicles, have some lesson for his own soul, and if he is an humble and praying man, he will know in his own blessed experience the meaning of the exhortation, “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,” 2 Pet. iii. 18.

Why should he not study the Bible, apart from the spiritual truths it reveals? Sir William Jones, according to the Encyclopaedia Brilanniea, was “one of the most accomplished linguists and Oriental scholars that England has produced. . . . In addition to numerous other acquirements, he knew thirteen languages well, and had an elementary acquaintance with twenty-eight others.” He was a learned lawyer and judge, publishing a Digest of Hindu Laws, and a translation of the Institutes of Manu, a compilation of laws and ordinances, dating from the fifth century before Christ. He was competent, therefore, to express the following opinion which he records on the last leaf of his Bible:

“I have regularly and attentively read these Holy Scriptures, and am of opinion that this volume, independently of its Divine origin, contains more sublimity and beauty, more pure morality, more important history, and finer strains of poetry and eloquence than can be found in all other books, in whatever age or language they may have been written.” How certain it is that “God spake ail these words!”